Uninstalling Windows 95 (1 Viewer)

[jeff peterson]

I bought Windows 98 from a friend to attempt an intall over Win 95 to take advantage of my PC's USB ports. But it says I need Win 98 UPGRADE, not the full version.

So, how can I safely uninstall 95 to safely install 98

 

[NickSo]

The best and easiest thing would to reformat your computer... Do you have files you wanna keep or would it be okay for you to reformat?

 

[jeff peterson]

Yea, thanks Nick. That's the rub...I have many files I'd like to keep.

 

[Colin Dunn]

In that case - back up the files you want to keep to other media. If that's not possible, you could try booting a DOS disk and deleting the C:WINDOWS directory tree. That will break any applications you had installed, and you won't carry over your desktop settings.

I generally recommend AGAINST doing an 'upgrade install' over the top of an existing Windows installation - especially for Win95/98. Too many problems with crashing and instability. It's worth the effort to back up your data, format clean, and reinstall from scratch...

 

[Rob Lutter]

Do you have a partitioning program? With a program such as 'Partition Magic', you can create another "drive" on your system... move all the files you want to keep there, format the other "drive", install Windows on the formatted drive... and keep all your files intact.

 

[jeff peterson]

Ok, I'm biting the bullet and going to format my hard drive. But, how do I do it? Do I stop the boot up process at some point before Windows 95 starts? Or do I do it from WITHIN Windows (that doesn't seem to make sense to me)?

 

[Rob Gillespie]

You'll need a DOS floppy.
Go here:
http://www.mirrors.org/archived_soft...m/original.htm
Download the file for 'Windows 98 Custom, No Ramdrive' and run it. It'll create you a DOS floppy disc that allows you to boot into DOS, format and start the Win98 installation.
1. Boot into DOS with floppy
2. Do format c:
3. Insert the Win98 CD, go to the CD drive (D: for example) and run setup.exe

 

[Danny R]

Before formatting that drive, make absolutely certain you can actually read your CD from the dos prompt. If not, find the right drivers first.

 

[Andre F]

I would recommend that yourpartition your drive AFTER backing up all your files. Then you should reformat the drive and install the OS. I would then suggest placing all your files on the second partition. This saves a lot of time if you end having to reinstall the OS. Since I do this several times a year it saves me a lot of time.
-Andre F

 

[Steve Berger]

You should be able to just install to a different directory name to get a clean install. ie "win98" instead of "Windows". Assuming you have a enough drive space all your files would still be present but your applications would have to be reinstalled. It should be easy to check and see if it works and non-destructive; unless you're also changing from FAT16 to FAT32 then you'll probably need to partition and format.

 

[Brad_V]

Never do an upgrade or any OS change without a hard drive format. It's just asking for trouble.

Best way is as said. Backup whatever you want, make sure your win98 floppy boot disc works, and then have at it. I now always put the OS on a separate partition of 2 to 4 gigs and then a second partition for programs and files like Andre mentioned. Makes it much easier the next time you have to reinstall an OS for whatever reason.

Could also make three partitions and put the boot files on the first, OS on the second, and programs on the third, but not necessary, of course. I'd definitely do a separate partition for the OS, though.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I've amazed myself by not mentioning partitioning (I'm always harping on about having data separate to the OS).

Basically, what Brad said - except that I personally keep applications on the same partition as the OS. If you ever need to reinstall the OS, you need to reinstall the apps anyway.